


Close Your Eyes

by MassOfMen



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Jason Todd Needs Love, Past Character Death, but he does not get it in this, littered with catch 22 references because its my favorite book and i think jason would like it, maybe there will be eventually but for right now everything is sad, so typical jason stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24519601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MassOfMen/pseuds/MassOfMen
Summary: A dead boy was glaring at Jason. His eyes blamed Jason for his grave now in the middle of the cave, made of glass and housing the outfit he died in.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	Close Your Eyes

The monument to a dead boy was glaring at Jason. He was convinced that he could see the reflection of a boy in the glass. A boy whose hope and dreams of graduating high school and going to college and having a good relationship with his father was blown away when a man dressed up as a clown thought it would be funny to destroy everything Jason had worked hard for. A boy who died at 15 thinking that he would be remembered for something other than just being “A Good Soldier”. 

The problem was that Jason never saw himself as a soldier, prepared to die for Gotham. The irony of that being that he didn't even get the decency of dying in Gotham. He died in far away lands, thousands of miles away from his home.

Maybe he was a soldier then. 

Paul died on the front at 20, and Nately died in a plane at 19. Both were away from their homes and lives. Neither signed up for their wars wanting to die, yet both did, just like Jason did. However, Jason suspected neither Paul nor Nately’s fathers built shrines to them in their underground caves where they dressed up and fought crime.

But as for now, the case was glaring at him. Even now, in the low lighting, he could feel the cold, empty eyes of the domino mask laying waste to his soul. The flaccid gloves only moments away from hitting Jason with the full might of a child whose punch was cured with a history of malnourishment that, despite Alfred’s best efforts, never dissipated. That was something Jason always wondered. If he had lived and not been forced into the Lazarus Pit, what would Jason have looked like. Would he still be that same lankly, short boy whose long arms made him look like a teenage frankenstein monster. Jason could not imagine it. A Robin trapped in a body that a doomed childhood created. 

Even just looking at the all-knowing and acrimonious outfit, Jason can tell the boy who died wearing it was weak. He thought not about what could go wrong. It never crossed his mind, he only spent his day worrying about his science homework and what the other kids at his school thought of him. The boy would hate going to Galas because he could feel that judgmental eyes of Gotham high society following his every movement, questioning why anyone would take in someone like him. The boy was weak because he thought he was untouchable, that no matter what happened his dad would be there to pick him up and take him home. 

What an idiot.

Jason was not Paul or Nately. He did not face the horrors of war head on until it was too much to bear. He was Snowden. A little rabbit killed before he even realized what war really was. Spilling his guts all over the plane that would be his grave, the truth of man being told in his blood.

Maybe he wasn’t a little rabbit. He was a little bird. Pushed from the nest and doomed to fall head first into the unforgiving ground, never being able to fly.

Jason was told long ago that if you don’t like what you see in the mirror, close your eyes.

The boy in the case was dead, but his body was here. Stuck living a incomplete life and suffocated in the memories of a long dead child. He could hear the past creeping up and resting it’s hands around his neck, always on the brink of finally snapping and putting him out of his misery. 

By now, Jason knew his staring contest with the dead boy was being noticed by the other birdies in the cave and, more importantly, by the looming Bat whose memories of the dead child ruined any chance Jason had in making a name for himself. 

It was getting late, and Jason knew that his chance at escaping the hell that was spending a night in the Manor was fleeting. But he could not take his eyes off the dead boy who continued to scowl at Jason as if he was the one who held the crowbar.

“Jason…”, a timid voice asked from beyond the case. 

Timid was never a word associated with a Wayne, but now, in the cave where everyone thought and saw Jason as nothing more than a criminal who knew their names. As a zombie whose bloodlust was found not in human flesh and blood-stained teeth, but at the barrel of a gun. 

It was a known fact in Gotham that the Waynes hated guns, and that was what Jason was; A gun always just about to go off, only needing a new more pounds of pressure on his trigger before he exploded.

A much richer and confident voice then spoke up, “Jason, are you alright?”

The death stare of the dead boy finally ended. He disappeared into the outfit, just another ghost in the Manor. 

Jason supposed that somethings should stay ghost. 

He looked around to the little birdies surrounding him, confusingly filling their faces, “Yeah, sorry… I was just distracted.”

Dick nodded silently, “I was asking you if you were going to go patrolling tomorrow?”

What else would he do? “Yeah, what else would I do?”

Dick shrugged but gave no other answer. It was clue enough to Jason that his time in the cave was no longer needed nor wanted. Jason would accept this silent demand to leave, as he got up and made his way towards his bike.

Jason gave one last look to the grave of the young boy. His memory was being tarnished, but it was clear no one here really cared about that. So neither would he.

That boy was no good to anyone anymore. He was just a memory, a ghost in this big house already haunted by the spirits of the past. No longer mourned by those who loved him, if they ever did in the first place. It didn’t matter now. If you don’t like if you see in the mirror, close your eyes, and Jason’s eyes have been closed since he woke up.

No one grieves for the little birds who hit the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> So it's late and I haven't finished a story in about 2 years, but fuck it, tonight's the night. 
> 
> Originally I was going to have a whole Bruce and Jason conversation but I got to lazy and I knew if i started it, I would never finish it, so here I present a finished work in all its glory.
> 
> I feel I have a really weird style of writing so I'm sorry if it was hard to follow, I have been writing like this since I was 11 and now I'm turning 20 this year, so there is no fixing it.
> 
> If you want more of this story line continued, please tell me. I really enjoy writing it, but I can't promise anything for about 2 years lol. 
> 
> Who knows or who cares when in the time line this takes place. I imagine pre-Damien but no one really cares right?
> 
> Paul is from All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and Nately and Snowden are from Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Both are fantastic novels and I feel Jason would relate to both of them incredibly, since both focus on the uselessness of war and the loss of life. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it though, have a great night.


End file.
